Biblical Instruction: What It Looks Like to Teach Like Jesus

From the sermon preached on May 17, 2026

Most people have been corrected by someone who made them feel worse for it. Biblical instruction is the opposite: it is truth delivered in a way that restores the hearer rather than shames them, and the book of Romans tells ordinary people they are already equipped to do it. What that looks like in practice, and what posture it requires, is what this post is about.

Most of us have received correction the wrong way. A parent who went for the wound. A boss who made the feedback about power. A friend who said the right words in completely the wrong way, and left you smaller than before they said anything. That kind of correction sticks, but not in a useful direction. It teaches you to protect yourself, to hide the parts of your life that need the most work. Correcting with love is not a softer, vagueness version of the same thing. It is a different thing entirely.

The Greek word behind "instruct" in Romans 15 is noutheteō (pronounced noo-theh-TEH-oh), and it appears eight times in the New Testament. Every single use carries the idea of warning or corrective instruction delivered for the hearer's benefit, not the speaker's. It presupposes a moral standard rooted in God's revealed will, and it aims at restoring or strengthening the person's walk with Christ. That is a very different goal than winning an argument, asserting authority, or making someone feel the weight of what they did wrong. Correcting with love begins with the end in mind: not the speaker's relief, but the hearer's restoration.

Lead Pastor Ryan Mustered drew on this word to name what biblical instruction is actually supposed to do. It is a posture before it is a practice. Humility first. Patience second. The right content delivered with the wrong posture produces the wrong outcome. And there is a reason Paul commends this kind of correcting with love to ordinary people, not just pastors or elders: he tells the church at Rome they are already full of goodness, filled with knowledge, and able to instruct one another. That means the person sitting across from you at the kitchen table may be exactly the person God intends to bring you something true and useful.

Teaching with humility is not the same as being soft. It is not the absence of directness. Jesus, who is described in Matthew 23 as the one instructor above all instructors, was the most direct teacher who ever lived, and he taught with unmistakable authority. But he warned his followers not to take delight in being called "instructor" or "master." The position was not the point. The person in front of you was the point. Teaching with humility means you are more concerned with what the other person receives than with how you come across delivering it.

One of the clearest images of this in the sermon came from a fifth-grade teacher named Miss Hansen. Her reputation was strict, and the class coming to meet her had already suffered a devastating loss: Tommy, a student's best friend, had died that summer. They came back in September as a shell of what they had been. And Miss Hansen, who was expected to be harsh, chose instead to come alongside them with compassion. She wept with them. She made space before she made demands. That is not weakness. That is teaching with humility at its best: reading who is in front of you before deciding what they need to hear.

Teaching with humility also means receiving instruction well, not only giving it. The apostle Paul tells the church in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-14 to hold their leaders in highest regard and to receive admonition with openness, to admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, and help the weak. The person who cannot receive correction gracefully rarely gives it gracefully. And the person who has learned to be taught well tends to understand, at a gut level, what teaching with humility costs and what it is worth.

There is a version of instruction that leaves people informed but defeated. And then there is biblical instruction and encouragement, which does something completely different: it names the hard thing and then hands the person the capacity to move through it. Romans 15:13-14 says it plainly. Paul writes to the church in Rome: "I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another." He does not just command instruction. He first tells them they are capable of it. That is not flattery. That is biblical instruction and encouragement operating together: seeing the potential in a person before you speak into their need.

The image Pastor Ryan offered for this was Isaiah 42:3, fulfilled in Matthew 12: "A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench." To the world, a bruised reed is worthless. It gets discarded. But Jesus understood the bruised reed because he was bruised for our iniquities. He came to the disfigured man in Matthew 12 and healed his shriveled hand. He came to the woman caught in adultery in John 8 and saved her from stoning. He came to Peter after Peter's denial and restored him to fellowship. Every one of those was an act of biblical instruction and encouragement: truth delivered in a way that lifted rather than crushed.

This is also the story of Priscilla and Aquila in Romans 16. When they heard the eloquent and well-educated Apollos preaching in Ephesus, they did not embarrass him publicly or dismiss him. They took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately. And because of that quiet, private act of correction, all the churches of the Gentiles benefited. Biblical instruction and encouragement looks like people who stick their neck out for you because they care more about where you end up than how they look doing it.

Romans 15:13-14 is not addressed to pastors. It is addressed to the church at Rome, ordinary hard-working people who had gathered together in a city that had no reason to listen to them. Paul tells them they are equipped by God's word and by his spirit to instruct one another. The Greek word noutheteō presupposes that the person doing the instructing cares about the outcome for the hearer. It is not about credentials. It is about posture.

Whether you are in Watseka or Ashkum, Clifton or Milford, Cissna Park or Danforth, or across the border in Goodland, Indiana, there is no shortage of hard conversations that go unheld every week. Iroquois County and Newton County both carry the weight of people who have needed someone to come alongside them and speak plainly, without piling on shame. Trinity Church exists across those communities for exactly that reason: not to perform religion at people, but to do what Paul described to the Romans and what Jesus modeled for everyone. If you have been carrying something privately and wondering whether there is a place that will tell you the truth without making you feel worse for it, this is an honest answer: there is.

The point of biblical instruction, from Romans 15 to Priscilla and Aquila to the closing prayer of the sermon, is that it brings blessing. That blessing is not an abstract reward. It is encouragement and hope delivered through endurance and through the word. Somebody who was a bruised reed walked away from an encounter with Jesus no longer discarded. That is what faithful instruction produces when it is done the way Christ did it.

Maybe you are the bruised reed today. Maybe you have been corrected badly enough that the idea of receiving instruction from anyone sounds like a threat. Jesus does not come to you that way. He comes with understanding because he has already carried what you are carrying.

If you are ready to take a next step, we would love to welcome you at Trinity Church, at our Ashkum, Goodland, or Watseka Campus. Wherever you choose to visit, you are welcome just as you are. And if you are not quite ready for that, you can still connect with us and let us know how we can pray for you; that is the whole ask. Plan your visit below or connect here to reach out with no strings attached.